The aim of the course is to give the international Masters’ degree student a good start in Finnish language. The course helps the student to cope with various, meaningful everyday life situations, and it provides a good basis for grammar. The student is guided to pay attention to similarities and differences between Finnish language and other languages to raise language awareness. The student becomes familiar with Finnish culture and way of life. The course includes communication, pronunciation, reading and listening exercises and some writing tasks. Students practice both in pairs and in small groups, using also digital platforms. Special emphasis will be placed on communication skills. In addition, homework is be assigned throughout the course.
Themes: greetings, introducing oneself, countries, languages and nationalities, the seasons and weather, months and days of the week, numbers, expressing time, colours and other adjectives, family and relatives, clothing, food and eating, shopping: buying and paying.
Structures: vowel harmony, consonant gradation, possessive structure, the verb types and conjugation in the present tense; asking questions and responding to them; partitive and genitive singular; some aspects of the Finnish local cases.
- Teacher: Susanna Virtanen